How to practice gratitude for this uncertain time in your life

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Whether you’re graduating this June or in a couple years, the thought of life after college has surely crossed your mind. Some people wince at the thought, some are excited to get out of here and some even have jobs lined up and waiting for them. No matter what point you’re at in your planning for post-grad life, you’re on the right path.

If you have chosen to study something you love and it also happens to have economic value, continue pursuing it with fervor and dedication (you’re one of the lucky ones!). If you don’t have that perfect combination, that’s okay too. Welcome to the experience of most people. A lot of us feel that same stress, so definitely don’t feel alone.

Once you graduate, you have an infinite number of paths ahead of you. You could join the Peace Corps, go to graduate school, travel the world, move home for a bit, start bartending, develop welding skills, start a podcast — you get the point. You can do anything you want, and that’s the beauty of it. These possibilities might not be immediately available to you under the constraints of finances and other responsibilities, but the fact remains that there are more potential paths for your life than the one you imagined when you were 18. When you graduate, you graduate into more freedom over your future — and even though that can be scary, it’s exciting too.

This is a time in your life when it’s okay not to know. It’s a time when you have the freedom to try new things because there’s so much life ahead of you to keep trying. Give yourself grace and time to figure out what you want to do because the journey is part of the process and the fun. You’re creating meaningful memories and stories you will tell for years to come. Although it may feel like society expects you to know what you want to do right out of college, please know that all people experience periods of exploration and self-discovery before they find a path that is right for them. In fact, many recommend it!

It’s also normal to change your career multiple times, so don’t feel pressured to pick something and stick with it forever. In fact, this is a perfect time to start trying out career fields to begin your search. Maybe you just find a job to pay the bills for now — that’s fine and doesn’t mean you’re locked in for life. The point we’re trying to make here is that it is all on your own schedule, and you shouldn’t feel persuaded to do what society or even your parents want. Do your best to listen to your own desires and curiosities — start there.

After all, the point of school is to learn, not to just learn how to get a job (though maybe that should be incorporated into the curriculum given our current economy and society). But once you graduate you can take all the knowledge you’ve gained and apply it to the world around you, even if it’s in a different way than you expected when picking your major. Much like your knowledge, the world is multifaceted and intersectional, and can benefit from your uniquely curious mind.

Giving yourself time to explore without bounds can be a way to truly make a difference and find a way to spend your life doing something (or somethings!) that fulfills you.

As you look for these potential careers, understand that you don’t need a job that changes the world AND is in your dream city AND is creatively fulfilling AND uses your specific diploma AND impresses your mom. Find work that makes you feel valuable, yes, but all of these expectations that have been placed on what a “valuable life” looks like, are fake. You get to decide what fulfills you and what gives your life value. And what a wonderful privilege that is. Not to mention, it’s likely that much of what fulfills you will come from other facets of your life, rather than your career. 

Remember, happiness is not dependent on having things “figured out.” Your happiness is much too important, and life is much too beautifully messy for this to be the case.

You might be looking for a job or figuring out where to live or trying to find what you’re most passionate about, but even in the midst of all of this, you can still appreciate the little things and enjoy where you are now. It’s important to teach yourself how to be happy while experiencing stresses like these, especially because you’ll probably never feel like you’ve fully figured it out. There will always be things you’re waiting for or more goals to reach, so learning to protect your peace in all the craziness of life is essential to your happiness. 

It may feel like this editorial is saying, how could the future be stressful when it’s also all of these wonderful things? But we recognize that like many things in life, this is something that is exciting and beautiful, and also scary and anxiety-inducing. Financial stress and social pressures are real, and finding a balance between exploration and stability is going to be tough. 

But humans are nothing if not adaptable and resilient, and the good news is that you, too, are a resilient, adaptable human. You’re going to do just fine out there.

No one changes the world alone, and no one doesn’t change it at all. We are all lost sometimes. In our experience, this is when the most growth happens. Remember that doing things for yourself and your future dreams should be a priority, so use this time of uncertainty to tend to your dreams, whether they be big or small. The wandering you’re doing and will be doing is meaningful, and it might actually help lead you to your next job or passion. It will show you strength and resilience you didn’t know you had and teach you the virtue of patience. 

So you’re on a path and you don’t know where it’s going, what a boring life it would be if you did. Embrace the unknown, try new things, find your place.

Written by: The Editorial Board

From Lawntopia to divestment bills, the student body can directly impact where their student fees go 

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Every Thursday night at 6:10 p.m., the ASUCD Senate and other elected officials gather on the third floor of Memorial Union to make decisions representative of the wants and needs of the student body. Despite this, these meetings are typically a ghost town. Aside from the required attendance of ASUCD officials and the obligatory presence of a reporter from The Aggie, it’s not often that students show up to a Senate meeting, and it’s even more unlikely that they stay the whole time. 

We don’t entirely blame you — with an agenda that severely underestimates the amount of time that it takes to discuss a single topic, these meetings can sometimes last as long as seven hours. Even further, there is no accessible place to find these agendas which outline the topics that the Senate will be deliberating at each meeting ahead of time.

However, these last few weeks have shown us why wider student engagement at the Senate meeting actually works, and we need to keep this momentum going.

For example, SB #41, which allocates $469,075.63 from the ASUCD General Reserves to the Entertainment Council (EC) to go toward the 2024 Lawntopia concert, passed 9-4-1 (Yes-Abstain-No) at the Feb. 8 Senate meeting. This bill was controversial: Many senators originally felt that nearly half a million dollars from the reserves was too much to put toward a concert that can only host 15% of the student population. Other senators argued that this amount was needed to make a successful Lawntopia happen amidst the EC budget being reduced by over $150,000 for this academic year.

Regardless of the Editorial Board’s opinions on this piece of legislation, the bill’s widespread and productive dialogue serves as an excellent example of the power that the student voice holds. Once Senators Binh Do and Jonathan Kang made an Instagram post — which received over 900 likes — encouraging students to attend the Senate meeting in support of the bill, a large sea of students showed up and shared their various opinions on the topic during the public comment period. While the Senate held split opinions on the bill, it was the strong attendance of individuals in support that pushed them to vote in favor of what the students wanted. 

Another recent bill, SB #52, implements an ASUCD-wide boycott and divestment from Israel and corporations “complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza.” This bill passed 12-1-1 (Yes-Abstain-No) at the Feb. 15 Senate meeting. Prior to the meeting, UC Davis Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) made an Instagram post that also encouraged students to attend and speak in support of the bill. When the meeting started, hundreds of students came and voiced their opinions, leading to nearly six hours of debate before the piece of legislation was passed. Once again, the Senate table’s votes toward the bill reflected the majority opinion of students who voiced their support at the meeting, determined to get it passed.

Showing your face and presenting your opinion on something that you care about forces the Senate to listen. We recognize that these meetings are long and tedious, but being present during the deliberation of a bill or topic important to you both better informs the Senate and holds them accountable for the campaign promises they made to get elected. Every Senate meeting has a public comment section during which students and community members are allowed to raise objections or express support for agenda items. 

It’s also a two-way street: The Senate needs to be better at publicizing when they will be making certain decisions and how students can let their perspectives be known. When student organizations publicize relevant Senate legislation prior to meetings, it often increases turnout significantly — but they shouldn’t be the only ones putting work into making Senate agenda items known. 

SB #41 and #52 both involve a lot of money and impact a ton of students, but where is the publicity for other pieces of legislation? Every bill, big or small, affects a number of students, whether or not they know it exists.

Why are the Senate agendas impossible to find? The ASUCD Government website has been down for months, and aside from the bill regarding Lawntopia, senators rarely ever post about legislation prior to it being deliberated on during a meeting. Students can’t show up if they don’t know where to look for this important information. 

Why is the ASUCD roster not available online? And why is the ASUCD roster that is currently linked to the ASUCD Senate Instagram from the 2021-2022 academic year? (It’s 2024.) Students can’t reach out to their senators if there’s no accessible way to find out who they are in the first place.

With the goal of making this information easier to navigate, the Editorial Board has decided to start posting the Senate’s weekly agendas prior to each meeting on The Aggie’s Instagram page (Although we can’t control how far ahead of time the agenda is shared with us).  

If you can’t make the Senate meetings, here are some other ways that you can make your voice heard within ASUCD:

• Because it’s so hard to find, let us remind you who the current senators are: Chasa Monica, Gabriel Gaysinsky, Jacob Klein, Dani Antonio, Curtis Chen, Trinity Chow, Jonathan Ng, Binh Do, Katia Bouali, Yara Kaadan, Nur Ambaw, Leah Jung. Each has an Instagram account dedicated to promoting what they do as senators. 
• Talk to a senator during their office hours. Most senators publicize the times and places that they hold their office hours on their Instagram page.
• Fill out the ASUCD Senate Public Comment Form if you cannot attend the meetings but still have opinions that you would like to see voiced there. Submit your comment before each Senate meeting and it will be read out loud during the public comment portion. The link to this form can be found on each Senate agenda.
• Join the Senate meeting via Zoom if you can’t join in person. You can still participate in public comment this way. The Zoom link is always the same and can also be found on each Senate agenda. 

Written by: The Editorial Board